If that’s genetics, then I’m the Queen of Sheba

BBC Radio 4 is caught up in a row over its airing of ‘dubious’ science

WHEN James Naughtie presented a gentle item on the Radio 4 Today programme about tracing ancestors through DNA testing, it hardly seemed likely to cause a stir.

Instead it has plunged the veteran broadcaster into a row involving warring academics and the Queen of Sheba.

In July, Naughtie interviewed his old friend Alistair Moffat, whose business interests include BritainsDNA, which traces the “deep ancestry” of individuals through a saliva test. The relationship between the two men was not revealed to listeners.

During the interview Moffat claimed his company had found that Marina Donald, 69, of Edinburgh was a descendant of the Queen of Sheba and that Ian Kinnaird, a retired lecturer living in the Highlands, was the first person in western Europe who could trace his descent directly from the first woman on earth: an “Eve” who lived 190,000 years ago.